In Newcastle, England, Mary Flora Bell, one day before her 11th birthday, strangled Martin Brown (4). She and unrelated friend Norma Bell (13) were later tried for the murders of 2 boys Martin Brown (4) and Brian Howe (3), committed 9 weeks apart. In 1972 Gitta Sereny published "The Case of Mary Bell," based on her coverage of the trial. In 1999 Gitta Sereny published "Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell," based on interviews with Mary Bell.
Links: Britain, Murder, Kids

1968 Jun 19

In SF newlywed Officer Peter McElligott was fatally shot in a shootout with 2 robbery suspects in Golden Gate Park. The 2 attackers were later convicted of murder.
Links: USA, SF, Murder, Robbery

Carolyn Olsen was murdered during a robbery that netted $18 on a Santa Monica tennis court. Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt was accused of the murder though he maintained that he was in Oakland on the night the 27-year old teacher was shot to death. He was arrested in 1970 and convicted in 1972 and sentenced to a life term in prison. Julius "Buffo" Butler, a police informant who spied on the Black Panther Party, told police that he believed Pratt killed Olsen. In 1997 a judge ruled to reverse Pratt’s conviction based on the credibility of Butler. He was released on $25,000 bail on 6/10/97. In 2000 Pratt was awarded $4.5 million to be paid by Los Angeles and the FBI.
Links: USA, Black History, Murder, SF Bay Area, Robbery

1968 Dec 20

The first known murder by the Zodiac killer took place. Two teenagers, David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen, were shot to death in a parked car on Lake Herman Road outside Vallejo, Ca. The California Zodiac killer later identified himself with a letter to the Times-Harold in Vallejo. After that he claimed to have killed 37 people but the police connected him to only five deaths.
Links: USA, California, Murder, SF Bay Area

In Japan Iwao Hakamada, accused of killing a family and setting fire to its house after a robbery in 1966, was sentenced to death. After 19 days of 12-hour interrogations he confessed. At his trial he said the confession was coerced. In 2008 Japan’s Supreme Court turned down a retrial plea.
Links: Japan, Murder, Fire, Robbery

1968

In Grand Chute, Wis., a night watchman was killed during a robbery at a car dealership. In 2005 police in Appleton, Wis., arrested Robert Mitchell (75) for the murder.
Links: USA, Murder, Wisconsin

19681985

In Italy serial killings during this period left 16 people dead in the Tuscan countryside. In 1994 Pietro Pacciani (69) was convicted of 14 murders and sentenced to life in prison following trial that was televised. He was cleared in 1996 and ordered to face a retrial, but died in 1998. Pacciani's friend, Mario Vanni (70) and Giancarlo Lotti (54) were convicted of their involvement in five of the double murders. Vanni was given a life sentence and Lotti received a sentence of 26 years in prison. In 2001 Florentine authorities reopened the case amid speculation they were investigating up to a dozen wealthy Italians who orchestrated the ritualistic killings by manipulating a trio of voyeuristic peasants. In 2006 Mario Spezi, a journalist who has worked with the American thriller author Douglas Preston on a book about the killings, was arrested and accused of slander and sidetracking the investigation.
Links: Italy, Murder

1969 Mar 10

James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tenn., and was sentenced to 99 years in jail. Ray later repudiated that plea.
Links: USA, Tennessee, Black History, Murder

1969 May 1

In SF plainclothes Officer Joseph Brodnick was fatally shot after he and a partner stopped some youths suspected of burglary. 6 people were acquitted at trial.
Links: USA, SF, Murder, Robbery

In Connecticut Warren Kimbro (d.2009 at 74), a member of the Black Panthers, fatally shot Alex Rackley (19), another member of the Black Panthers, who was believed to be an FBI informant. The shooting was ordered by George Sams, a local Black Panther leader. Prosecutors later alleged that Bobby Seale had ordered the murder.
Links: USA, Black History, Murder, Connecticut

Darlene Ferrin (22), a waitress, was shot and killed at the Blue Rock Springs Golf Club in Vallejo. She was parked with Michael Mageau (19), who survived the shooting. The Zodiac killer reported the shooting within an hour from a pay phone.
Links: USA, Murder, SF Bay Area

1969 Jul 31

The Zodiac killer sent a poorly-spelled letter to the SF Chronicle, Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald and took responsibility for the July 5 shootings along with a portion of a cipher.
Links: USA, SF, Murder, SF Bay Area

1969 Jul 31

Gary Allen Hinman, a California musician and UCLA Ph.D. candidate, was found murdered at his home in Topanga Canyon, Ca. Bruce Davis, a member of Charles Manson’s murderous cult, was later convicted for the murder of Gary Hinman as well as stuntman Donald “Shorty” Shea.
Links: USA, California, Murder

Actress Sharon Tate (26) and four other people were brutally murdered in her Beverly Hills home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples were later convicted of the crime. The best writing on the Manson murders was by Joan Didion in "The White Album."
Links: USA, California, Murder

1969 Aug 9

Actress Sharon Tate and four other people were found brutally murdered in her Los Angeles home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples were later convicted of the crime. Charles Manson's followers killed actress Sharon Tate and her three guests in her Beverly Hills home. The dead included Abigail Folger and Voyteck Freykowski.
Links: USA, California, Murder

1969 Aug 10

Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were murdered in their Los Angeles home by members of Charles Manson's cult, one day after actress Sharon Tate and four other people were found slain. Charles “Tex” Watson, the self-described right-hand man of Charles Watson, was one of the killers. Watson was sentenced to death in 1971 but the sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 when California’s Supreme Court ruled the death penalty to be unconstitutional.
Links: USA, California, Murder

1969 Aug 26

Donald “Shorty” Shea (b.1933), a Hollywood stuntman, was murdered about this time. The location of his body was not discovered until 1977. Manson family leader Charles Manson and family members Tex Watson, Steve Grogan aka Clem and Bruce Davis were eventually convicted of murdering Shea.
Links: USA, California, Murder

1969 Sep 27

The California Zodiac killer pulled a gun on two teenagers at Lake Berryessa. He stabbed them repeatedly and killed the girl.
Links: USA, California, Murder

TimelinesA text-based site.

1969 Sep

Susan Nason (8) of Foster City, Ca., was bludgeoned to death. Her body was found 2 months later near Crystal Springs. In Dec 1989 Nason's neighbor and schoolmate, Eileen Franklin-Lipsker, told police that she suddenly remembered seeing her father batter her friend and hide the body. In 1990 George Franklin was convicted in the first case to use recovered-memory testimony. Franklin was released after 6 1/2 years when a federal judge ruled a mistrial. DNA evidence showed Franklin was not responsible.
Links: USA, Murder, SF Bay Area

1969 Oct 11

The Zodiac killer shot and killed SF cab driver Paul Stine (29) at Cherry and Washington in Presidio Heights. This was his last known murder. His last authenticated communication was in 1974.
Links: USA, SF, Murder

1969 Dec 31

In Clarksville, Pa., Joseph Yablonski was murdered with his wife and daughter. Yablonski had lost an election for the presidency of the United Mine Workers 3 weeks earlier [see Jan 5, 1970].
Links: USA, Labor, Pennsylvania, Murder

1969

In Saskatoon, Canada, David Milgaard (16) was convicted for the murder and rape of Gail Miller. He was in prison for 23 years until DNA tests proved that the crime was done by Larry Fisher, a multiple rapist. His story was later told by Peter Edwards and Joyce Milgaard, David's mother in the book "A Mother's Story."
Links: Canada, Murder, DNA, Rape

1970 Jan 1

In SF Officer Eric Zelms was fatally shot when 2 burglars surprised him and gained control of his gun. The burglars were later convicted of murder and sentenced 8 to 10 years.
Links: USA, SF, Murder

Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers, was found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pa., home. Nine people were later charged in the killing including UMW Pres. W.A. Boyle.
Links: USA, Labor, Pennsylvania, Murder

1970 Feb 17

At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald’s wife and 2 daughters were murdered. Dr. MacDonald was convicted of the murders but claimed that drug-crazed assailants were responsible. The book "Fatal Vision" by Joe McGinniss recounted the story. In 2005 evidence was presented that Helena Stoeckley (1953-1983), a defense witness, had admitted to a prosecutor that she was at MacDonald’s house on the night of the murder.
Links: Murder, North Carolina

1970 Apr 12

In Mississippi Rainey Pool, a black one-armed farmer, was beaten and tortured by a mob in Belzoni. His body was dumped off a bridge into the Sunflower River. In 1999 James "Doc" Caston (66), Charles Caston (64) and Hal Crimm (50) were sentenced to 20 years in prison for their part in the killing. Joe Watson pleaded guilty and testified in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Links: USA, Black History, Murder, Mississippi

1970 Jun 19

In SF police officer Richard Radetich (25) was shot 3 times by a gunman as wrote a ticket in a parked patrol car. Radetich died 15 hours later leaving behind a wife and 8-month-old daughter.
Links: USA, SF, Murder

1970 Jul 26

The SF Chronicle received a letter from the Zodiac killer with an unsubstantiated claim of killing 13 people.
Links: USA, SF, Murder

Ronald Tsukamoto (b.1942), a Berkeley, Ca., rookie police officer, was shot and killed. In 2004 Don Juan Warren Graphenreed (54) was arrested as a suspect in the murder, but was released without being charged. In 2005 police arrested Styles Price (56), a retired Oakland schoolteacher for the killing. Graphenreed was again arrested at Corcoran State Prison, where he was held on a drug charge. Price was soon freed and the case against Graphenreed was dropped due to “insufficient corroborating evidence.”
Links: USA, Murder, SF Bay Area

1970 Oct 19

John Linley Frazier murdered Dr. Victor Ohta, his wife, 2 children and secretary in Santa Cruz, Ca. He was convicted in Dec. 1971, and sentenced to death. The sentence was changed to life in prison after the state Supreme Court struck down capital punishment in California. In 2009 Frazier (62) committed suicide at Mule Creek State Prison.
Links: USA, California, Suicide, Murder

1971 Jan 25

Charles Manson and three female followers were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.
Links: USA, California, Murder

1971 Mar 29

A jury in Los Angeles recommended the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders. The sentences were later commuted.
Links: USA, California, Murder

1971 Apr 19

Charles Manson and 3 accomplices were sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders.
Links: USA, California, Murder

The last victim of Wayne Boden (1948-2006), Canadian serial killer and rapist, was found. He earned the nickname "the Vampire Rapist" because he had the penchant of biting the breasts of his victims.
Links: Canada, Murder, Rape

Juan Corona (b.1934) was arrested for 25 murders. The farm labor contractor from Yuba City Ca., had killed and mutilated 25 farm workers. He was convicted to life in prison.
Links: USA, California, Murder, Agriculture

1971 Jul 21

In Nederland, Colo., Marshal Renner Forbes pulled Guy Goughnor ("Deputy Dawg," aged 19) from the Pioneer Inn tavern, drove to a remote area in Clear Creek County and shot him in the head. Goughnor’s body was found a month later but their was insufficient evidence to link the marshal to the killing. In 1997 Forbes at age 68 confessed to the murder.
Links: USA, Colorado, Murder

1971 Jul 30

In SF Officer Arthur O’Guinn was fatally shot while making a traffic stop. 2 people were caught and convicted of 2nd-degree murder. They were paroled in the late 1970s.
Links: USA, SF, Murder

TimelinesA text-based site.

1971 Aug 29

In SF 2 men burst into the Ingleside Police Station and fired through a hole in a bullet-proof glass window killing Sgt. John Young (45). A civilian clerk was wounded. Black Panthers were suspected. 3 men were charged in 1975 but charges were dismissed in 1976. In 2005 a SF judge jailed 4 men for contempt after refusing to answer questions from a grand jury. In 2007 police charged 9 former members of the Black Liberation Army with waging a campaign of “chaos and terror” that left at least 3 officers dead from 1968-1973. 8 of the men were charged with murder in the Ingleside slaying. On June 29, 2009, Herman Bell pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, as he continued to serve a life sentence in New York for the murder of 2 police officers. On July 6 Anthony Bottom pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit voluntary manslaughter. Bottom was already serving a sentence in NY for the murder of a 2 NYC police officers in May 1971. Prosecutors dismissed charges against 4 other men. This left just Francisco Torres to stand trial for Young’s murder.
Links: USA, SF, Murder

1971 Sep 11

The body of a woman was found in the Delta-Mendota Canal near Westley, Ca. she had been stabbed 65 times. In 2008 DNA evidence identified her as Mary Alice Willey (23) of San Francisco. It was suspected that she had played a role in the Aug 29 black Panther attack at the Ingleside police station that left one officer dead.
Links: USA, California, Murder, DNA

1971 Oct 30

Mack Ray Edwards, California serial killer, hanged himself while on death row. He admitted to 6 sexually motivated murders in the 1950s and 1960s and later told a jailer that the number was closer to 20.
Links: USA, California, Suicide, Sex, Murder

1971

In California Francis Dale Calhoon (73) was convicted in the murder of his wife, Marian. He served 3 years in prison and during that time began writing books on the California Gold Rush. Calhoon died in 1999 and his 5 Gold Country sagas were still in print along with a story of his prison experience.
Links: USA, California, Historian, Murder

1971

John Linley Frazier, hippie revolutionary, was convicted of killing 5 people in Santa Cruz, Ca., and was sentenced to death.
Links: USA, California, Murder

Two San Francisco brothers, aged 7 & 10, confessed to the crucifixion murder of 20-month-old Noah Alba. They were never charged but were placed in foster care and given intense therapy.
Links: USA, SF, Murder, Kids

1972 Feb 4

In California the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders when Yvonne Weber (13) and Maureen Sterling (13) were seen thumbing a lift on Guerneville Road. Their bones were found 10 months later six miles into the hills north of Santa Rosa. By December 1973 five more young women had disappeared in the area. They included Kim Allen (19), Jeannette Kamahele (20), Lori Kursa (13), Carolyn Davis (15) and Theresa Walsh (23).
Links: USA, California, Murder

1972 May 17

In Italy Luigi Calabresi, head of the political dept. of the Milan police, was killed. He had been falsely suspected of having killed the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli in 1969. In 1988 Leonardo Marino, a former far left Lotta Continua militant, confessed that he drove a getaway car and that Adriano Sofri (b.1942), a writer, had masterminded the killing. On July 28, 1988, Sofri was arrested with Ovidio Bompressi and Giorgio Pietrostefani for the alleged murder of Calabresi. Sofri was convicted in 2000.
Links: Italy, Murder

1972 Aug 15

In Argentina 22 members of guerrilla groups escaped from prison in the city of Rawson and took over the airport in nearby Trelew, about 800 miles south of Buenos Aires. Military forces guarding the airport managed to arrest 19, while three escaped by plane to Chile. 19 guerrillas were transferred to the base Almirante Zar. On August 22 they were machine-gunned in their cells. Alberto Camps, Mary Berger and Ricardo Haidar survived the attack and reported the crime, only to disappear in the late 1970s during the military dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983. In 2008 federal police arrested two retired military officers in connection with the massacre of the 16 leftist guerrillas. In 1973 journalist Tomas Eloy Martínez authored “The Passion According to Trelew.” It was banned by the Argentine dictatorship.
Links: Argentina, Murder

1972 Sep 11

The first trial of serial killer Juan Corona began in Colusa County, Ca. It ended up costing $350,000.
Links: California, Murder

Marine sergeant William Miller was shot and killed near Camp Lejeune, NC. In 2009 three people faced murder charges after prosecutors alleged that the murder was the result of a love triangle centered around Miller’s ex-wife, Vickie Babbitt. Fellow ex-Marine George Hayden (57), who married Babbit after Miller’s death, was alleged to have shot Miller. Ex-Marine Rodger Gill (56) was alleged to have witnessed the murder.
Links: USA, Murder, North Carolina

1972 Dec 7

Jean McConville, a widowed Belfast mother, was abducted from her home by 12 IRA members and was never seen alive again. The IRA suspected her of being an informant. Her 10 children were put into foster care. In 1999 the IRA admitted responsibility and revealed the general location of her body. Her body was found in Aug, 2003.
Links: Murder, Northern Ireland

1972 Dec 22

Diana Sue Sylvester (22) was raped and killed in the SF Sunset District after walking home from UCSF. In 2006 John Puckett (72), a retired carpet installer in Stockton, was arrested for the murder based on DNA evidence. In 2008 Puckett (74) was convicted of first-degree murder.
Links: USA, SF, Murder, DNA, Rape

1972

John Wayne Gacy began to lure young men and boys to his home in Chicago for sex, then tortured and strangled them. He was arrested in 1978.
Links: USA, Chicago, Sex, Murder

197273

Edmund Kemper III (b.1948) murdered 6 female college students and chopped up their bodies in the Santa Cruz, Ca., area. In 1964, at age 15, he had shot and killed his grandparents. He killed his mother and a friend of hers in Santa Cruz on Easter weekend, 1973, and soon surrendered. He was sentenced to life in prison at Vacaville, Ca.
Links: USA, California, Murder

Juan Corona was sentenced in Fairfield, Ca., to 25 consecutive life terms for the 25 murders of migrant workers.
Links: USA, California, Murder

1973 May 27

Betty Tyson (24), a prostitute and heroin addict, was arrested for the strangulation death of a businessman. Her murder conviction was overturned in 1998, due to a wrongfully suppressed police report, and she was released from prison 25 years to the day from her arrest in New York.
Links: USA, New York, Murder

1973 Aug 8

In Texas Elmer Wayne Henley (17) called police in the Houston suburb of Pasadena to report a shooting. The high school dropout said he had killed Dean Corll after the 33-year-old electric company employee threatened to rape and kill Henley and two other teenagers who had gone to party at Corll's modest bungalow. By night's end 8 corpses were recovered from makeshift graves inside the corrugated metal shed in southwest Houston. The next day 9 more were discovered. Another 10 bodies were found on remote High Island beach, 80 miles east of Houston, and in a wooded area near Lake Sam Rayburn in East Texas. 27 dead Some as young as 13, none older than 21, were all victims of one killer, Dean Corll, and his two teenage accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks. The boys had seemed to vanish over the previous three years. In July, 1974, Henley was convicted in six of the murders and sentenced to six life terms in prison.
Links: USA, Murder, Texas, Mad Man

1973 Aug 19

In Santa Cruz, Ca., Herbert Mullin (b.1947) was declared guilty of first-degree murder in the cases of Jim Gianera and Kathy Francis, because they were premeditated, while for the other eight murders he was found guilty of second-degree murder because they were more impulsive. His story was later told by Donald T. Lunde and Jefferson Morgan in “The Die Song: A Journey in the Mind of a Mass Murderer.”
Links: USA, California, Murder, Mass murder

1973 Sep 15

Victor Jara (b.1932), one of the best-known members of Latin America's "New Song" folk movement, died. He had been arrested after the Chilean military coup that overthrew Allende and taken to a soccer stadium used as a detention camp. Court papers indicate Jara was tortured, his hands smashed with rifle butts, and then was shot to death along with former prison service director Littre Quiroga. In 2008 a court charged retired Col. Mario Manriquez in the case, saying he was "responsible" for the death. In 2009 Jara’s body was exhumed for a proper autopsy. Army draftee, Jose Paredes, later described the murder and named the officers he said were responsible. Paredes told interrogators that a lieutenant known as "El Loco," the Crazy One, held Jara against a dressing room wall and played Russian roulette until a bullet blasted through the singer's skull. In 2012 eight retired army officers were charged in Jara’s slaying. On Sep 5, 2013, a civil suit accused Lt. Pedro Barrientos Nunez of ordering torture and firing the fatal shot that killed Jara. In 2014 three more people were charged in the murder of Jara.
Links: Chile, Murder, Pop&Rock